Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo Pushing to Make SNAP Benefit Exemptions Permanent

Yadira Caraveo, who represents Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, introduced a bill on Tuesday, June 13, to permanently solidify work exemptions for veterans, unhoused people and former foster youth under the age of 25 to qualify for Special Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

In the debt ceiling agreement passed on June 3, legislators determined that the aforementioned groups would be exempt from recently imposed work requirements for adults who are between the ages of 50 and 54. Previously, only those between 18 and 49 had to work for at least twenty hours a week to receive food benefits from SNAP. Now, those up to 54 must do so, too — which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates will lead to hundreds of thousands of citizens being at risk of losing benefits, including 9,000 people in Colorado.

Caraveo, along with fellow Democratic representatives Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, and Emilia Sykes of Ohio, is pushing to make the work exemptions permanent for vets, former foster youth and those experiencing homelessness to ensure that they aren't among that number.

On June 13, the legislators introduced the Food Access and Stability Act to do just that.

“As a pediatrician, I've seen how important SNAP benefits are to so many families,” Caraveo says, referencing her career before she became a lawmaker.

“So when I saw that we were including in those benefits people who are vulnerable and who would have otherwise been subjected to onerous work requirements — but that these benefits ended in 2030 — it really seemed important to make sure that we weren't pulling some benefits away from them in seven years.”

In 2022, SNAP provided aid to more than 540,000 Colorado residents. The work exemptions will mean that 78,000 more people across the country can access SNAP, even accounting for the older adults who would lose benefits thanks to the debt ceiling agreement.

Caraveo estimates that around two-thirds of her patients used SNAP.

“Part of what frustrated me about being in a clinic and eventually drove me to Congress was how hard it was for people to do just basic things for their families,” she says. “People were working two, three jobs and still really having difficulty providing basics for their kids.”

She says she had multiple conversations each day with patients who told her SNAP allowed them to not have to stress about feeding their kids, while also enabling them to use their money on other necessities.

“Those who have served our country and who are struggling with homelessness, or who were part of a foster care system that places additional stresses in their lives — it's particularly important for them to be able to know that they have at least a supplement to what is going to keep them fed,” Caraveo says.

Local groups are worried about the new work requirements and the effect they might have on people with low incomes. “One of our biggest concerns is these work reporting requirements on very low-income households that are housed could push those households into homelessness,” says Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. “If they were using these SNAP benefits for food and they now have to cover the costs of food, they might have to take money away from what they're paying for housing.”

According to Alderman, people not working twenty hours a week could be taking care of children or living on fixed retirement incomes — particularly in that 50-to-54-year-old group. The work exemptions Caraveo is pushing to make permanent are critical, she says.

“These exemptions, for people experiencing homelessness, veterans and folks in the foster care system could be a lifesaver,” Alderman praises. "We know that most of these individuals are living on very low, fixed or no income, and access to food benefits could be the only way that they could actually get the food they need to survive.”

Even if people who are homeless can access SNAP benefits, it still doesn’t make sense to push more people into poverty with work requirements, Alderman contends.

According to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, 50 percent of all Colorado renters are cost-burdened. These individuals pay more than 30 percent of their household income for rent and are the ones at the greatest risk of homelessness when SNAP becomes harder to get.

“Homelessness is terrible for the individuals that have to experience it from a health perspective, from a mental health perspective, from a safety perspective,” Alderman says. “It's also really expensive for taxpayers for people to be in this emergency cycle of homelessness using emergency services like the ER, like detox facilities, like shelters, and so it's really short-sighted to try to cut costs on these programs.”

This, coupled with the fact that city resources such as food banks could be stretched thin because of fewer SNAP benefits going out, makes the argument for a permanent system much louder. 

Sarah Gregory, public policy coordinator for Feeding Colorado, a coalition of food banks in the state, says the group is still waiting for guidance on how the debt ceiling changes will impact its work. “Our network is already in the midst of an unprecedented increase in demand of emergency food services over the past few months,” she says in a statement. “[The debt ceiling] bill will likely put more pressure on the state's hunger-relief system, underscoring the urgency for Congress to pass a Farm Bill that protects and strengthens key federal nutrition programs like SNAP."

Caraveo is helping lead the charge on the Farm Bill as she works to gather more sponsors — including Republicans — for the Food Access and Stability Act.

“I'm hoping that it gets a fair hearing and shake through the process of having a markup and getting people to vote on it,” she says of the act. “It's very important to make sure that we, as both parties, are supporting our veterans in particular, as well as those who are vulnerable.”